


to clean a rifle

by suzzzan



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Established Relationship, Hurt, Hurt/Comfort, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, M/M, Menstruation, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Vietnam War, though not really specified, traumatic childhood events, valjean and javert raise cosette, whooP
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-09
Updated: 2019-08-09
Packaged: 2020-08-13 12:24:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,133
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20174224
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/suzzzan/pseuds/suzzzan
Summary: They know nothing of raising a child. But Cosette seems keen to grow up, so they try to help her however they can.





	to clean a rifle

Valjean wears linen pajamas to sleep. He always manages to sweat through them. In the morning, they wake to the feeling of clammy skin pressed to skin, Valjean's shirt ridden up to his sternum, half the buttons undone, his pants hitched up to the knees. Javert just runs his fingers through those sweat-stringed curls, pulling them back off Valjean's forehead, then gets up to make coffee.

Javert's a light sleeper, always has been. When he was younger, he'd wake to the sounds of Mama sleepwalking. Passing through the kitchen, she'd turn the coffee maker on. Sit at the table in her bathrobe. Sometimes she'd take the rifle out of the closet and clean it.

Or he'd wake to the neighbor's dog barking. That dog bit him once, flagged him down as he was getting the mail. Latched onto his ankle and wouldn't let go. Javert still has a crescent-shaped scar around his Achilles tendon; he was afraid of dogs for the longest time, until he decided he would become like the thing he feared. Valjean laughed at him when he told that story. Laughed and laughed. Like no one else had laughed in the history of mankind. Like he was finally shaking something off his shoulders that had crawled up there and died and been dead for years.

These days, Javert wakes to Valjean thrashing in his sleep. Grips his shoulders, the size of an angel's wingspan, steels himself against flurries of fists that could crack rock, and wakes Valjean up. Endures it when Valjean's knuckles tighten around his wrists like manacles, when he looks up, half-asleep, and says, "I couldn't save them. Oh God, I tried. Believe me. I went back to save them."

Javert tells him, "I know."

And repeats it, "I know."

Valjean slumps back into sleep eventually. They wake, sweat-tangled, Valjean remembering where they are again. Sometimes Javert finds marks on his forearms in the shape of Valjean's hands, and Valjean kisses them softly, looks at them with eyes that burn.

"I'm sorry."

"It's alright. I know."

After Javert's father came home from prison, Javert would wake to the cold. His father sat in front of the muted TV until long after midnight, the air conditioner turned on full blast, sipping liquor straight from a bottle. Sometimes he saw Javert watching him and he looked back—"What're you looking at boy?" Even now, that's how Javert remembers him, a specter, cast in blue, squinting at the TV. ("What're you looking at?") The prison tattoos over his biceps inkwells that sucked in the light.

"He had to've gotten up sometime," was all Valjean said about it. "You know, to use the bathroom."

"He did. It's funny. Mama only knew how to clean the rifle in her dreams," Javert said.

"Did she need it?"

Javert couldn't answer. Never answered. Valjean knew, though. Knows. He grabbed Javert by the neck, roughly, and fit his head against his chest, in the nook of his own neck. They fell asleep like that.

Valjean's better about answering. He'd give himself away and away, Javert knows. Javert's only asked him once what happened.

"We burned their huts."

"So you went back for them? Even though..."

"Yes. Even though we destroyed their homes."

"And then?"

"I got caught. Imprisoned."

After that it's all jargon. They thought Valjean was deserting, but he dreams like all the rest of them. Of horrors.

When they make love, it's just that. There's no fire, no shouting. The bed creaks, and their bodies rock like the sea. Javert's afraid of the thought of the sea, the darkness and deepness of it, so he moves toward what he fears most. He moves Valjean further inside him, gripping himself so as not to be lost. They're slick with sweat and move with a lifelong desperation, like they've been looking for each other this whole time.

"_Valjean_."

"I know."

The girl comes into their lives unexpectedly. She's the daughter of Valjean's second cousin or something, a woman Valjean lost touch with years ago, who shows up at their house one night, coughs up blood and dies. The girl stays; her name is Cosette.

They know nothing of raising a child. But Cosette seems keen to grow up, so they try to help her however they can. Valjean gets her a nightlight, reads her stories, lets her climb all over his broad shoulders, sends her to school, buys her all the toys she points at. Javert tries to learn how to cook and tries—_tries_—to tell Valjean he can't spoil her like that.

She's active, flits from place to place. She wants to try soccer, then painting, then martial arts, then violin. Valjean indulges her in everything. Javert tells her, "You need to pick something, and stick with it. You're like what they call a Jack of all trades—but a master of none." Cosette just glares at him and says, "My name is Cosette, not Jack." Javert wonders where she gets the iciness from. Certainly not Valjean.

Javert can feel both of them growing old. He's never felt old before Cosette. It's as if she's drawing all the life out of them. He wants to ask her to give it back, please. She practically glows with life. He only resents her for it a little bit.

Oddly enough, it's him she comes to. "Javert," she says, looking all small and scared, "I don't know what's happening."

Javert's read about this online, so he's not surprised. For a moment he feels detached, thinks to himself, is this what his life has come down to?

"Oh," he says. "You're just menstruating."

He convinces Valjean they do _not_ need to go to the ER or call 911. Instead, they make a perfectly normal trip to Cosette's pediatrician. She asks Javert for help with her math homework after that. (Javert's not very good at math, but he pretends to be because it's the only thing Valjean can't teach her.)

Javert manages to sleep through a whole night without Valjean waking him. They wake with the sheets sweaty but not uncomfortable. Javert rakes the hair away from Valjean's face to kiss him, says, "You need a haircut."

"Why, you don't like me like this?" Valjean says.

Javert pauses, smiles.

"Careful how you answer."

"I like you any way," Javert says.

Eventually, they get through a whole week without a nightmare.

"Better enjoy it while it lasts," Valjean whispers. "Pretty soon _she'll_ start sneaking out, and we'll have to take turns keeping watch through the long nights."

Javert just rolls his eyes.

One week turns into two of peaceful sleep, of waking up happy. In the mornings, Javert moves slow like the sea, makes coffee for three. He and Valjean, they touch now like breathing. Slowly, somehow, it's gotten easier.


End file.
